I used my legs to squirm my way up to the top of the mattress away from him, but one hand on my leg and a rough tug and he had pulled me back down to him.
“Please, we can talk this through,” I begged.
“Becca, enough. It’s too late. I gave you the chance many times to do as I wanted. It was impossible, and you left me no choice. Now shut up.”
I let out a cry for help, screaming at the top of my lungs. My throat felt like it was on fire.
He pulled a piece of tape from the roll quickly, and without another word, placed it over my mouth, muffling my cries for help. He then picked up the knife and held it up against my cheek, slowly pushing the cold steel against my hot skin.
“No one is here. No one is coming or you. You get that. All your brother is going to find is his sister’s mangled body, that is it.”
I froze as the tears poured. My chest burned from trying to suck in air that wasn’t there. He placed his hand on my shoulder, holding me on my back, and I felt his hand at the waist of my jeans. He flicked the button open with his fingers, and then he took the knife and cut the zip tie from around my ankles.
Grant
I pulled out front of my shop and checked my phone for a message from Chris, but there was nothing yet. I climbed out of the truck and walked over to the front door, inserting the key into the lock.
Screeching tires caught my attention, and I turned to see Chris pull his truck into a parking space behind mine and jump out of his truck. “Hey, man, what did you find out?” he yelled as he came running toward the front door.
I held up the credit card statements and pulled the door open. “You need to look at these,” I said as I rushed into my office as fast as I could and handed the bills to Chris for him to look at while I shuffled through the invoices on my desk.
“What is this?” he asked, staring down at the red circles and question marks that stood out on the pages he held in his hand.
“I asked her to go through her credit card statements and circle anything she didn’t recognize. FUCK!” I shouted as I slammed the pile of invoices I had been going through onto my desk.
“Okay, so did he steal her card?”
“I think so. I called Nixon’s Storage. They wouldn’t give me any information, but I also know the name of the place. I am sure I did an install there a few weeks back, in one of the lockers.”
Chris looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I glanced around my office and saw another stack of invoices sitting on top of the filing cabinet. I reached for it and began sorting through the papers again. “I really need to get these files in order,” I mumbled.
“So why don’t we go check the place out? It’s just on the outskirts of Merlot.”
A surge of adrenaline rushed through me as I stared down at the invoice halfway through the pile. There it was. I had been there. I handed Chris the invoice, and then a note on my desk caught my eye: disconnect Nixon Locker Cam.
“You installed a camera inside of a storage locker?” he questioned, looking at the invoice.
I heard Chris, but all I could do was stare down at the note that sat on my desk. I could remember Gale standing in my doorway talking to me about it when Becca had called. I had rushed to her and forgot to disconnect the feed.
“Grant? Did you hear me? Who the hell would want to pay for a monitoring feed inside of a locked storage locker?”
I pushed past Chris on my way back to my monitoring room, ignoring his question. Would this guy really be this stupid?
“Grant, would you please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
I flipped the monitor on and cycled through the feeds, my heart pounding as I came to the one I was looking for.
“Grant, please, we are wasting time here.”
I looked over at Chris and pointed to the monitor. There in front of me, on the screen, was Becca. I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was point to the monitor as I watched some guy kneel between her legs and hold a knife up to her cheek as she cried. A surge of anger rushed through me. I wanted to tear the guy limb from limb, and I worked hard to calm my anger.
“Holy fuck,” Chris whispered under his breath as he stood watching with me. “We’ve got to go.”
Chris tore his cell phone from his back pocket and dialed as he ran out of the room. I could hear him talking but couldn’t move from where I stood. Every nerve in my body was on fire as I stood watching the screen. Watching as the girl I had loved my entire life lay on a bed crying, scared to death. Her captor moved out of sight, moments later back into sight on the screen. He knelt on the bed, gripping her by the legs, pulling her closer to him. I flipped the feed to see what the rest of the room looked like. I studied the items on the table, and that was when I noticed a makeshift bomb.
“Grant, let’s go. My boss is going to meet us there,” Chris called.
It was all I could do to tear myself away from the monitor and headed out the door.
“Police are on their way.”
“We have to hurry. There is a bomb,” I gritted.
I rushed out the door, locking it behind me, and ran to my truck.
We pulled into the parking lot of Nixon’s Storage. Emergency vehicles were everywhere, and we approached the officers at their command post.
“What do we know?” Chris’s boss asked.
“She’s in there. There is a bomb just inside the door on a table. It’s a homemade job. I used to deal with these all the time when I was overseas. They are pretty easy to dismantle,” I said, fighting my urge to run in there and save her.
“Grant, calm down. You aren’t going in there,” The captain said, holding his hands up to calm me.
“Do we know whose locker it is?” Chris asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Belongs to a Jace Taylor, known alias for Steve Mann,” the sergeant answered, looking directly at Chris, giving him a knowing look.
I glanced in Chris’s direction, his face going pale at the mention of the name. Chris said nothing. He just stood there staring back at his sergeant.
“Chris, you care to tell me what is going on here?” I questioned, my hands forming into tight fists.
“Steve Mann was the younger brother of the gang member I took out a few years back,” Chris murmured. “He got into some trouble with me after his brother died. He was granted bail maybe ten months ago, but he’s not supposed to be in this area.”
This was all a setup to get back at Chris. I frowned, my anger rising in me again.
Suddenly, a loud scream, followed by a loud bang, rang out from inside the storage garage. It cut the tension mounting between Chris and me and instantly, the officers, myself, and Chris ran in the direction it had come from.
Becca
“Stop screaming. I told you there is no one here who is going to save you.” The words gritted through Jace’s clenched teeth as he held the cold steel of the gun to my temple. “That was a warning shot. Another scream and I promise I will make this one count.”
He covered my mouth with another strip of tape as he held my now-free hands over my head with one of his. He placed the gun back on the mattress beside me and continued trying hard to force his free hand into my pants.